MUMBAI: Reliance Industries' (RIL's) third quarter (Q3FY16) consolidated profit rose 39% to a record Rs 7,290 crore ($1.1 billion), boosted by the highest refining margins in seven years. The company's refineries earned $11.5 on each barrel of crude processed, as against $7.3 a year earlier. RIL's earnings beat analyst estimates of Rs 7,010 crore, according to Bloomberg.

The revenues from the company's mainstay - refining and marketing - decreased 30% to Rs 57,385 crore, but gross profit from this segment doubled to Rs 6,491 crore. This segment accounted for 78% of RIL's revenue and 67% of its gross profit in the December quarter.

"Refining business delivered yet another record performance on the back of a seven-year high refining margins and highest-ever crude throughput," said Mukesh Ambani, CMD, RIL, which operates the world's biggest oil-refinery complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat. Petrochemicals, the second biggest contributor to revenues, declined 16% to Rs 19,398 crore in the third quarter through December from a year earlier but gross profit increased 28% to Rs 2,639 crore. Revenues from oil & gas fell 38% to Rs 1,765 crore due to lower oil and gas prices in domestic and US shale segments. In shale gas, the company said it will cut its investment from $900 million last year to $500 million this year.

"The benefits of low crude oil and energy prices for our downstream businesses clearly outweigh the impact of these factors on our upstream segment, reflecting in the record earnings for the quarter," Ambani said, referring to petrochemicals and exploration businesses.

The billionaire also said that RIL's subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJI) has rolled out 4G services to the group's over 1 lakh employees but didn't comment on the launch date for external customers. RJI has so far spent Rs 1 lakh crore, including on spectrum.

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The ongoing field development and EOR/IOR projects are expected to produce a cumulative of 54.6 million tonne (mt) of crude oil and 114 billion cubic meter (bcm) of natural gas in the next three to four years, the report said.